


Taking Arms Against Seas of Trouble

by Aubreylia (orphan_account)



Series: Detectivebent [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Sburb Session, Equius is soggy, Eridan is even creepier than Terezi, F/F, F/M, Gamzee is also a hot mess, Karkat is angry, M/M, Sollux is a hot mess, Sollux/Kanaya BFFLs, Terezi is a creep, detective!stuck, everyone is a troll, fantastically awful language, is that a thing already?, it should be a thing, looking at you Karkat, non-mutant Karkat, there's some murder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-15
Updated: 2012-06-05
Packaged: 2017-11-03 16:51:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 11,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/383715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Aubreylia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There were very few things, Sollux reflected, more magnificent than Karkat worked up into a righteous fury and set to the chase. There were also, he admitted with a wince, not many things louder.</p><p> </p><p>Alternative Title: Everyone (Except Kanaya) is a Douche to Everyone Else and Karkat Doesn't Deal Well With Feelings Ever (There's Some Murder Too)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue, In Which There is Paperwork

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Hamlet's soliloquy in, of course, Hamlet!

“YOU GRUBBY NOOKSTAIN THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING YOU ARE RUNNING FROM A MOTHERFUCKING POLICEMAN IS WHAT YOU ARE – shit ow augh – DOING AND IF YOU THINK THIS IS AN APPROPRIATE MOVE AT THIS PARTICULAR FUCKING JUNCTION THEN YOU ARE A MAGNIFICENTLY SHITTY DECISION MAKER TURN BACK AROUND THIS INSTANT YOU LITTLE _BITCH_!” 

Sollux allowed himself a moment to admire how Karkat managed to monologue at top volume while maintaining a flat sprint. Even that nasty tumble over the girder had barely broken his rhythm. 

~O~

It was always a toss-up whether it was Karkat or Karkat's shouting that brought the suspects in. Sollux suspected, by the sheepish expression on the suspect's face, that volume had won out this time. He started loading the guy up while Karkat leaned against the side of the car. When he started swaying a little Sollux didn't even bother noticing. 

“Nithe going, fuckath, not a total wash – oh FUCK, Karkat, did you puncture your fucking EYEBALL?”

~O~

Sollux stared at the memo, mouth sagging open. There was no possible way it was early enough for him to find a shit to give. It was even too early to find half a shit, and probably too early to find a quarter of a shit. 

Fuck, he wasn't even awake enough yet for his eyes to spark. 

“Fuck.” he said to the world, planting his face in one of the piles of paperwork he had very recently been assigned. “I hate you.” 

Kanaya leaned over, crisp as ever, and plucked the paper from his slack grip. 

“Oh dear, they have you pulling his paperwork too.” she offered sympathetically. 

“Becauth he wath 'injured in the line of duty', ath if the fucker ever let that thtop him from doing ath he damn well pleathed.” His lisp was sloppy with exhaustion and rage. “And I can't even blame him cauth he'th genuinely hurt!” 

Kanaya gave him a pitying glance and scooped up the most daunting pile of forms. 

“I don't see why you can't have someone help you, dear.” She offered. Sollux pried his face from the depths of paper and despair to offer her a heartfelt smile. 

“You are the betht moirail _ever_.” he informed her. She nodded graciously. 

~O~

Karkat stalked in an hour later like five feet and three inches of extremely pissed-off justice. The door tried to slam behind him. He glared it into a cowed and polite shut. It was a rather impressive glare and made more so by the fact one eye was bandaged up. 

“Hey, fuck you, Kk.” Sollux flipped him a sarcastic salute. Karkat returned it with twice the sarcasm and unnecessary amounts of flourish. It was affectionate though. The fact that there weren't any expletives rolling forth like the condemnations of mountains was a dead giveaway. 

“Sorry about the fuckery, Sol, I tried to tell them to grab some of the goddamn probies. Teach them real policing.” They sniggered meanly together for a moment. 

“Tho no punctured eyeth?” Sollux asked, eying the bandages gingerly. 

“Not even close nookwiff, just badly cut up general area. Keep working on those observation skills though and you might actually catch a real life bad guy someday.” Sollux scowled and hitched his shoulders higher. 

“Fuck you, bulgemuch.” he muttered. 

“Yeah well stop being so damn pathetic.” Karkat grumbled. Sollux accepted the apology by way of a punch to Karkat's shoulder that was marginally softer than normal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Karkat doesn't let Sollux use his psionics to help him catch the criminals. Apparently, it's 'cheating'.


	2. Chapter One, In Which There is a Brouhaha and an Informant Informs

Eridan looked up from his completely legitimate business papers as the door collapsed inward, annoyed. 

Equius stalked in with offended dignity. There was a dark lump over his shoulder topped by a truly monstrous amount of hair. After a protracted amount of scrutiny it resolved itself into a troll. A homeless one, by the clothes. An unlucky homeless one, by the smell. 

“This... _disreputable_ troll wished to speak to you.” Equius offered, sneering. 

The lump on his shoulder stirred, revealing a single bloodshot gray eye peering through the tangled hair. With a put-upon sigh Equius hefted the mangy troll from his shoulders. 

The troll proceeded to systematically go grubfuck crazy the instant his toes touched the ground. 

“Shit.” Eridan stated succinctly as the boy vaulted over the table. _Somehow_ he was managing to drag Equius behind him. 

It didn't take a rocket scientist to tell the boy was blitzed from stem to stern on something. Even through the incoherent screaming and the flying papers of his completely legitimate business and Equius's truly blank, astonished face, the troll's pupils were blown so wide the yellow sclera barely showed. 

This all occurred in a very abstract and small portion of his brain. 

The rest of it was busily screaming 'FUCK FUCK FUCK' at top, pants-shitting volume. 

The boy had entirely too much elbow and fingernail and what he lacked in finesse he made up for in terror and desperate frenzy. Luckily for Eridan, he was more than experienced with this particular variety of fights as shipyards were the types of places disagreements got resolved with a shank. Luckily for the boy, Eridan recognized him before he went for any of his lovely variety of weapons. 

Things got very interesting for a minute or so. 

The boy ended up on his back. Eridan's boot heel on his collar kept him from getting up. 

“Gam?” Eridan asked in puzzlement. 

Aforementioned boy sobbed for breath and shook with fear. He was babbling in a remarkably coherent fashion for the troll Eridan knew him as. Eridan listen for a few minutes, quietly. 

“Wwell, shit.” he said finally, to no one in particular. 

Equius colored and muttered 'lewd!' behind him. 

~O~

Eridan Ampora walked through the door to Karkat's precinct with a yelling, writhing, hairy ball of troll in tow. Karkat stood up in a leisurely fashion and strolled towards the door. Everyone in his immediate vicinity vacated it. 

One could say that Karkat was angry. 

One could say that Karkat was short. 

One could say that he was a person that only weapons-grade pity and a willingness to bend over a lot could put up with. 

But nobody said it in earshot more than once because something that everyone learned quickly was that Karkat Vantas was very, very good at his job and his job was perpetrating justice with extreme prejudice upon people who were often extremely unwilling to be perpetrated upon. 

One prissy fop and his pet hairball would be no issue. 

“What the bulge-guzzling fuck is this steaming load of shit you have decided to so lovingly deposit on us?” He asked. His syllables clicked into place like soldiers at inspection. “And why shouldn't I arrest you right the fuck now for disturbing the peace and sundry crimes against decency?” 

Eridan opened his mouth to further piss Karkat off. 

He was interrupted by the dirty troll wrapping his arms around Karkat's legs and starting to crying. 

Karkat stared down, nonplussed, at the skinny mess entangled with his legs, staining his pants with watered-down purple. 

“Uh.” he managed. 

The boy trying to meld with his legs looked up and Karkat realized that he wasn't so young, not really. He was probably as old as Karkat himself. The soft look on his face spoke of enough nights blissed and watching the pretty lights that the world hadn't crept in to hurt him yet. It made him look young. 

Karkat felt a pang of pity that he stepped on ruthlessly. Not the time, not the place, not the person. 

What he knew about Ampora was that he was probably not a prostitute and that he was definitely not bearable. The first part he had reasonably reliable evidence for. The second needed only Ampora himself as evidence. As far as shipyards went, though, Eridan ruled them with a damp fist and there wasn't much on the waters that he or his moirail didn't catch. 

Eridan had never _knowingly_ set a psychopath on any of them before, and Karkat didn't think he would start now. 

“What.” He enunciated clearly, so that Eridan would understand the full breadth and depth of his fiery rage. “The actual fuck.” 

“Wwell, you see.” Eridan sneered. Karkat wondered for the millionth how he managed to roll his w's. “This wwonderful little blight has somefin' to fuckin' say, don't he?” he toed the troll sobbing into Karkat's knees gently. 

The troll wiped his runny nose on his sleeve and stared up at them. 

~O~

Eridan swaggered towards the door. He was twirling his atrocious purple scarf. The air of smugness was palpable. 

“You know handing us murders won't stop us looking into your smuggling business.” Karkat informed him, even though it totally did. As long as Eridan was an informant he was mysteriously bypassed by naval cargo inspection. 

“I'm wwounded, Kar, I reel-ly am. You knoww I run a completely legitimate business. Clean from mast to main.” Eridan lied, putting his hands on his hips and thrusting out his chest smugly. Resting his forehead in his hands, Karkat sighed heavily. 

“Get the hell out of my building.” Karkat said tiredly. “Go give someone else a headache.”


	3. Chapter Two, In Which a Body is Found

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Troll justice in this AU, and the reason Karkat isn't excited (read: enraged) by a murder. The ladder of importance of a crime, from least to worst: murder, theft, drug trafficking, treason. 
> 
> The Condesce's view is basically “Hey stop that, killing you guys indiscriminately is my job and you're making me look bad.”

“Did we have to bring the probie?” Karkat asked sourly, glaring over his knees and out through the windshield. From the backseat, through the grate intended to keep rampaging trolls in check, John made a hurt sound. “No offense.” he tacked on grudgingly. 

“Work ekthperienthe or thome shit, I don't know.” Sollux replied, talking right over John's chipper reply of 'no problem!'. “We're here, time to pretend to be polithe.” 

“Fuck yes.” Karkat elbowed him in the side on the way out. 

“The day I hear these shitstains are getting torn down I will personally organize a fucking festival of joy and they won't be invited. With gambling-style card games. And prostitutes.” Karkat glared at the titular shitstains with deeply personal rage. 

A set of crumbling warehouses stared back, impressively un-cowed. 

“Jesuth, Kk.” Sollux leaned back and bit ineffectually at the straw to the cup of coffee in his hand. John stared around with wide-eyed, bushy-tailed enthusiasm. “Calm your fucking titth.”

“I've had to cart damn bodies out of here in wheelbarrows, _Thollukth_ , fucking wheelbarrows! It's fucking inconvenient!” Karkat turned in a full circle in order to properly flip off everything. Sollux matched the unimpressed facade of the warehouses. 

“Yeah, okay Kk, whatever you thay. Let'th go.” 

~O~

“Okay so.”

“Yeah. She'th pretty much, um.” 

“Everywhere?”

“Yeah you could thay that. That'th definitely a thing you could thay.”

“It's neat at least.” 

"How nithe for her."

"And she's naked. Probably a prostitute." 

“Yeth, KK, that'th a wonderfully utheful obthervation. Go poke around or thomething while REAL trollth do thome work.”

Karkat stormed off in a huff. 

Sollux looked her over analytically. The poor woman had been pretty once, before the mind-honey had gotten into her and convinced her up was down and air was food. The quite economical way she had been cut apart and arranged likewise didn't help. 

There really was blood everywhere, he thought. 

But her face had been left untouched and behind her expression of twisted up fear and pain her eyes were yellow-green. It was a gorgeous, delicate shade. 

He reached for his phone. 

“Tho there'th thith bitching dead body out here.” Sollux said as soon as Kanaya picked up. She sighed. 

“I assume my expertise is needed.” It was hardly a question. 

“Thorry Kn.” He shrugged and glanced around, though she couldn't see him. 

“Don't worry, darling.” He winced at the tired smile in her voice. “Strider's bar is a few streets over. Everyone talks to him, maybe you should too.” 

He nodded and glanced up with a hint of grin in his preoccupied expression. John blinked and stood up straighter at the receiving end of the look. 

“I'll thend Jn. And bring a body bag.” He told her, then turned back to the corpse, assessing. “Maybe thikth bags.” 

~O~

Karkat was kicking rubble around and swearing viciously under his breath when John found him. He hazarded a polite cough to get his attention. The look that got him was evil. 

“I was told to check on you?” he offered. “And then go talk to Dave Strider?” 

“Fucking Strider.” Was his only reply. 

John peered around through his glasses. Karkat rolled his eyes and kicked some more rubble sourly. 

“Couldn't it just be a random killing? I, at least I heard that some of the clients can be dangerous?” He looked hopeful and keen. Karkat pinched the bridge of his nose and dredged up a tone of awful patience. 

“It's too neat, especially if quadrants are even fucking involved. The johns don't premeditate, nooksniffer, they kill because they like their black-play way too fucking rough.” Karkat manfully refrained from kicking the wall again. “This kind of killing you only get from pimps usually, matesprites sometimes. The pimps, you learn to watch out for them. Fucking snakes, fucking hydras, you get one and a dozen fucking more pop up.” By the end he was just mumbling to himself. 

“So what do we do?” Johns smile was blindingly keen and inquisitive. Karkat's scowl became, impossibly, more pronounced. 

“We sit with our thumbs up our nooks and wait for another body to show up because obviously we aren't cops or anything fucking capable of figuring something the fuck out.” 

John blushed. 

“No need to be _obscene_.” He muttered. Karkat fantasized wistfully of punching people in the face. He couldn't quite bring himself to imagine them as John though. He must be growing a soft-spot for the kid. 

“Just go talk to fucking Strider.” he sighed finally, waving vaguely across the street. John trotted away, eagerness incarnate. 

Karkat gave a few token grumbles that no one was around to hear and returned to poking around.


	4. Chapter Three, In Which a Troll Experiences Defenestration, Another Informant Informs, and a Familiar Pair Returns

The smell of cheap booze that wafted past John's nose as he opened the door to Strider's Bar was utterly disgusting. 

John liked it immediately. 

He spotted Dave in the far end of the long bar, chatting with the bartender. Grinning enthusiastically, he started towards them. 

Predictably and in accordance with the great laws of nature John tripped over a stool leg, yanking it out from under a large and sullen troll. 

“Son'v a fuck!” The troll stumbled upright, kicking the stool out of the way to poke John in the chest with a rigid claw. “Th' hell?”

John felt his smile crash and burn around his ears, and made an effort to hoist it back up. 

“Sir, I think you should sit down.” John patted the angry troll's arm gingerly, hoping that was the right move. His training had absolutely not prepared him for this. 

“What's it t'you, copper?” he snarled, tilting his admittedly large horns aggressively. “You scared t'fight, nooklicker? 

The name didn't bother him. Anybody who spent any amount of time around Karkat Vantas became inured to that sort of foul language. The obscene names simply came with the territory. 

“No sir, but if you continue threatening a police officer I'll be forced to arrest you for obstruction of justice.” John hoped the troll wouldn't resist. John hated causing property damage. 

“Stuff it up your bung!” 

Out of the corner of his eye John say Dave starting to get up. 

This was simply not to be countenanced, he decided. The troll had been formally charged with obstruction of justice, and further resisted arrest. He was advised, according to his schoolfeeding by the precincts legislacerator, that the use of force was now necessary. Excessive force, recommended. 

Besides, he was looking bad in front of Dave. 

“Terribly sorry about this, sir.” he told the troll cheerfully and pulled his war-hammer from his specibus. The troll in front of him had a split-second in which to comprehend the multi-colored pain approaching before John brought Zillyhoo around and smacked him through a window. 

“That was a masterwork of impressive with shades of overkill.” Dave said from beside him, utterly bored. “I definitely didn't expect you to knock him through the window.” 

“I couldn't have knocked him through the wall! That would have been rude.” John felt himself flush blue-green. “Not to mention expensive.”

“Yes.” Dave's monotone voice sounded the tiniest bit strangled. “It would be.” 

Even though he couldn't see Dave's eyes through his odd dark glasses, John got the impression that Dave was staring at him. 

~O~

“So what did you get out of the fucking Strider?” Karkat leaned on his hand, bored. 

“Apparently she isn't a prostitute! She did hang around his bar sometimes though.” John smiled his biggest smile. He though he had done quite well. 

“How, in the name of incestuous genetic slurry and all things I hold fucking dear, did you manage to pull that out of his nutrition-hole.” John winced as Karkat dropped into low-blood slang. He was actually pissed now. 

“I think I impressed him!” John chirped, attempting oblivious cheer. 

“How the hell.” Karkat repeated flatly. 

“I um. Knocked a rowdy troll through the window?” 

“Again, John? Again? Fuck, we're never going to stop paying for these windows, are we?” Karkat threw a stapler at the wall. He wasn't that enraged, then, since he hadn't aimed at anyone. 

“We don't have to pay anything! The bartender even thanked me for kicking him out! Apparently he was harassing her.” His hurt expression made Karkat take a grudging step back. 

“Yeah, trust you to come out the perfect gentleman, all bullshit and roses.” He flopped back in his seat and glared at a group of new recruits until one of the fainted. John refrained from pointing out that bullshit and roses were not two great things that went great together. He didn't want Sollux's stapler thrown at his head. 

~O~

Eridan Ampora walked through the door to Karkat's precinct with a yelling, writhing, hairy ball of troll in tow. Again. Karkat allowed himself a moment of contemplative rage before approaching. 

“You have graced us with your presences again, grubfucker. Why?” he asked in his most pleasant voice. 

“Kar, I can't sleep wwith this troll in my office.” A deeply suspicious, sinking feeling started in Karkat's stomach. 

“And this is my problem how?” 

“You're takin' him off a' my hands.” Said hands were placed on Ampora's hips and given a superior tilt. Karkat experienced a moment of such deep platonic hate it took a loop through blackrom and ended up squarely back in platonic territory. 

“No. No I'm not. No, fuck you. Fuck you, fuck your lusus, fuck the ungodly combination of genetics that birthed you, and fuck the world that would let this moment be! NO!”

Sollux glanced up from his desk, interested for the first time. 

“Who died thith time?” he asked. Karkat snarled at him without breaking his laser-like eye-contact with Ampora. 

“The universe has decided to take yet another spectacular and be-scarved dump right between my fucking horns, nothing fucking new. Fuck off.” 

“Jutht take the damn troll, Kk.” was his reply. 

“Shut the fuck-,” 

“I _could_ just put 'im out to sea.” Eridan interrupted offhandedly. Karkat gave him a poisonous look. The bastard had the audacity to try to play him!

“God, Kk, obviouthly he'th your rethponthibility.” Sollux was, as always, being no help. 

“No, fuck it, I need him in my life like I need a third asshole!” Karkat shouted back. From the floor Gamzee stared at them tearfully, adding to the horribly guilty feeling in the pit of his stomach. 

“God fucking dammnit-,”

“If you twwo could stop fake hate-flirtin' wwith each other for one fuckin' minute then some real decidin' could be done, I'm shore.” Eridan put in nastily. They rounded on him with nigh-identical rage.

Karkat couldn't hope to match the spades Sollux was spitting though. 

The mutual-but-unspoken-hatecrush between Eridan and Sollux was something Karkat liked to pretend didn't exist so that he could continue looking at the world through rosy glasses that didn't involved them and candle-lit hate-dates in the same sentence. 

“Ath if I could ever hate Kk ath much ath I hate you, athhole!”

Karkat felt his rosy glasses cracking in tandem with his self-control. 

“I'll take the fucking purple-blood if you both shut the fuck up!”

He realized his mistake when they both turned to him with satisfied expressions. The bulge-biters had teamed up on him, shit. 

“I hate you both. I will piss on your graves.” He promised. 

Eridan at least looked affronted. Sollux didn't even bother blinking back at him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> John is in a weird position, hemospectrum-wise. Too blue to be a true jade-blood and too green to be another Terezi, more's the pity.


	5. Chapter Four, In Which Angry Detectives Do Not Deal Well With Feelings, and a Medic Makes a Discovery

Gamzee managed to miss the door twice on the way into Karkat's hive: once because he was looking at his feet in fascination and once because he was looking at the ceiling with equal enthrallment. In the end Karkat grabbed him by the cleanest-looking bit of clothing and steered him through the door frame. 

Gamzee continued contemplating his ceiling as Karkat maneuvered him into the bathroom while Karkat gathered up some towels and soap he started leaving dirty fingerprints on the mirror. It was some sort of smiley face, and Karkat made a mental note to get some bleach to clean it later. 

The sound of water sloshing into the bathtub brought Gamzee plummeting to earth like a meteor, however. The way he looked at the bathroom appliance hinted that he had experienced his fair share of the liquid and wanted none of it. 

“Whoa, bro!” Gamzee stumbled away, tripping over the bathmat. “Hold your motherfucking hoofbeasts.” Karkat growled and slammed the door shut preemptively. 

They spent a long few minutes staring at each other defensively. 

“Get the fuck in.” Karkat finally broke the stalemate. 

“I don't wanna,” Gamzee muttered rebelliously, “The water's motherfucking cold.” 

“Fuck you and fuck the water, it's fucking fine. Now get the fuck in, you smell like a broken load-gaper.” 

Karkat pointed an imperious finger. Gamzee got in, clothes and all. Much of the water exited. Much cursing ensued. 

“Here.” Karkat shoved a bottle of hair-and-horn cleaner into Gamzee's hands and tried to flee. 

“I don't. Exactly. Have the motherfucking knowing of how to use these things.” 

The troll looked miserable, drenched and shivering theatrically. His masses of hair were tamed into strings dangling down his back and into his face. The pitiful look in Gamzee's eyes bounced off Karkat's hardhearted and smell-reinforced armor. There was absolutely no pity to be had from Karkat, none at all. 

Gamzee sniffled wetly.

Karkat experienced a moment of such deep pity it took a running start and did an acrobatic fucking pirouetting swan dive into deep pale territory. And stayed there. 

He gave up and shoved up his sleeves with a choice obscenity. Gamzee chirped as he began to lather the soap. 

“This is the kinkiest thing I've ever done.” Karkat groaned. 

“Ain't no call being so tense, motherfucker. Ain't no strings attached to this deal, I motherfucking promise.” Gamzee muttered lazily. 

“You're just lucky I don't have a fucking moirail.” Karkat snapped, trying to hide his blush. 

“That is the motherfucking truth.” Gamzee reached a clumsy, waterlogged hand back and attempted an uncoordinated pap. Karkat sneezed and sputtered when it smacked him in the nose. 

“Watch what you're doing, fuckass!” he snarled, trying to stop his heart from fluttering. It was disconcerting and he was fucking ticklish. “This is so many wonderful fucking kinds of wrong I need a fucking directory to catalog them all.” 

~O~

Karkat stumbled into the building looking like he'd climbed out of a pile minutes earlier. The bags under his eyes were momentous. 

“Sollux. Sollux, you evil bastard, what the fuck did you do.” His voice was bleak and lifeless. 

“Shit, Kk-” Sollux began, looking genuinely taken-aback. Karkat snarled, rage snapping to life in all of it's healthy volume. 

“This is YOUR fault. Yours and that FUCKING seadweller! The fuckass doesn't know how to use a recuperacoon! He can't even wash his own hair! AUGH!” 

Sollux experienced a sickening moment of second-hand pity. 

“Oh dear.” he replied blandly, recovering. 

Karkat closed his eyes and whacked his head onto his desk. 

“I left him in my hive. I hope he doesn't burn it down. Or drown in the load-gaper, Jesus.” he was muffled by the papers Sollux was artfully dodging doing on his behalf. 

“That'th the motht pitying thing I've ever heard you thay. Doeth thomeone have a palecrush?” Sollux grinned as Karkat flailed upright, swearing viciously. 

“That's the most romantic thing I've done in fucking SWEEPS, maybe ever, fuck! Don't fucking test me, nooklicker!” Karkat threw a coffee mug at him. Sollux didn't even bother moving out of the way, watching it fly past his shoulder. 

“Thoundth like a palecrush.” he singsonged. 

“Fuck you!” Karkat screamed and disappeared under his desk. Sollux put his feet up on his own and checked the clock. Karkat was well known for his marathon under-the-desk sulks. 

The sullen lump of Karkat eventually shifted. Sollux checked the time. Only an hour and three minutes of silence punctuated by dire threats of violence and truly imaginative swearing. He must be pity-struck. 

“...It wouldn't work anyway.” A lime eye peeked hopefully over an arm at Sollux. 

“Tho you _do_ feel pale for him.” 

“Fuck your lusus!” The eye retreated and the ball of irate troll contracted even farther into the caverns under the desk. Sollux grinned and checked the clock again. 

~O~

“Sollux, darling, and you too Karkat.” 

Another hour later Kanaya poked her head out of her office and beckoned them over. Sollux got up and stretched. Karkat emerged with a glower that sent wrigglers scampering for cover. He theatrically avoided looking at Sollux as they followed Kanaya into the darkened room. 

Kanaya had clipped a series of x-rays to her lightboard. Karkat recognized that one was a brain. The rest could have been alien worms, or possibly intestines. 

“When I opened her up to take a look there was a lot of nervous system damage, and a lot of that was from the mind-honey.” Kanaya began, tracing a part of the cranial scan. “Except for these parts here.” The parts she pointed at looked absolutely the same as the rest to Karkat. Sollux looked just as lost when he glanced over guiltily. 

“Er?” he hazarded. Kanaya sighed and waved at the mess of shapes. 

“She was on... _something_ when she was killed. Something I haven't seen before.” She leaned back against the desk and contemplated the scan again. “Like sopor but...” She started speaking in long, science-y terms and Karkat tuned it out. He was carefully containing the wrath threatening to burst every blood vessel in his forehead. 

He tuned back in time to catch “-analyzing the contents of the stomach, and then I'll know more.” 

“So we have a new drug on our hands.” He surmised. Kanaya sighed and nodded. 

“In essence, yes.” 

“Fucking fantastic.” 

A coffee mug smashed against the wall, a new splotch of wet coffee joining the countless old stains.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The precinct Karkat works at has more coffee stains than blood stains. This is unusual and all Karkat's fault. A third of the annual budget is spent on replacing the office supplies he throws around.


	6. Chapter Five, In Which a Bitchfit is Pitched and the Second Informant Informs Again

“So the long and short of it is that we have a dead fucking body on our hands, a new drug out on our streets doing FUCK KNOWS WHAT, and all we can do is sit here stroking our goddamn BULGES because not one of us can scrape together a Mothergrub-blessed LEAD!”

“I think we are all aware of the circumstances, Karkat.” Kanaya said dryly. Karkat payed her no attention, striding from one end of the office to the other. A pair of trolls peered around the door very carefully, wide-eyed with fascinated dread. 

Sollux floated the remaining mugs and staplers to the door and bumped them insistently against the two until they got the picture, took the supplies, and absconded. It was best if there were no casualties yet. 

“We could athk Thtrider.” he offered carefully when Karkat paused. 

Karkat's hand flashed out automatically, groping for something to throw. When nothing met his grasp he howled in rage and kicked the leg of the desk Sollux was seated on. 

Sollux helpfully floated himself into the air. Karkat promptly flipped the desk like the desk was his shit. 

“Feel better?” he asked. 

“...Yes.” Came the reply. Karkat glanced guiltily at Kanaya. “Sorry about your desk.” 

“Not to worry, darling, we have all learned not to keep valuables in the building.” Kanaya's beatific smile served the function of churning Karkat's gut into a lovely slurry of regret and self-loathing. “Anyway, Sollux's idea is not a bad one.” 

“Excluding the involvement of the fucking Strider, but oh! Looks like it was the whole fucking idea!” Karkat muttered. Not very loudly, though. He was still feeling guilty. 

Kanaya and Sollux both patiently ignored him, busy debating between 'thend Jn, Thtrider ith totally flushed for him' and 'No, dear, calling is so much more polite'. Karkat interjected that they better not bring him in that day unless they wanted to be down an informant but up a new body. He got a distracted nod and a shooing wave for his trouble. 

He wandered out, dejected. 

~O~

Karkat walked into the precinct the next day, an hour late as usual, and stopped. 

Strider was sitting at his desk. 

Strider was sitting at his fucking desk getting his dirty fucking feet all over the paperwork. 

He was sitting at Karkat's fucking desk with his feet on the paperwork, chatting with John, something dangerously close to a smile on his face. 

He counted to ten in his head, counted again backwards, took some deep breaths, tried to picture himself as a pool of still water or some shit, and stalked over with his rage simmering instead of boiling. 

“Strider.” 

“Sup, Nubs?” Dave deadpanned, standing up. Karkat promptly felt his anger go completely off the deep end in every way. 

John left the room in something approaching a sprint at the low hiss Karkat replied with. 

“As much as I do so enjoy listening to you polishing your own bulge I have so many fucking better things to do. Do you have information or _anything_ useful, instead of dirtying the building with your fucking presence?”

Dave leaned forward, much too close for comfort. Karkat couldn't stop himself from snarling a warning. 

“I have to have a reason to enjoy your company?” He breathed, eyes gleaming behind his weird glasses. “Besides. I'm sure you'd do a better job on my bulge anyway... Kaykay.” 

Karkat didn't expect his fist to connect so when Dave staggered back, clutching his ribs, he spent longer then he would have liked just staring in astonishment. 

Belatedly he regained his cool and recalled what had set him off. 

“Don't call me that.” he gritted out. 

“Oh, I'm _sorry_ , isn't that what your fakesprite calls you? When are you going to get off your shame-globes and muster the bulge to ask him-” 

The coffee mug was narrowly dodged. The hot coffee, not as much. 

Hissing with discomfort and rubbing at his burning skin, Dave watched Karkat storm out the door. 

~O~

Sollux found Karkat under Kanaya's desk, muttering at the air. 

“Hi.” he seated himself on the floor next to the desk and received a particularly foul speculation on his heritage for his trouble. 

“You should apologithe.” Sollux told him lazily. Karkat pretended to consider. 

“Ummmmm, how about fuck no?” He offered brightly. Sollux laughed his stupid giggle. 

“Eheheh, right. Forgot who I wath talking too.” He unfolded upright. “But he thayth he'th got intel, tho let'th go make nithe.” 

“Fuck that.” Karkat muttered, but he got up and followed grudgingly. 

~O~

Karkat and Sollux returned to find that John had found his way back, though Dave's feet had taken up residence on Sollux's desk this time. Instead of flipping his shit, Sollux lifted a reasonable eyebrow and Dave up to the ceiling. 

“That'th impolite, you know.” He stared up. Dave blinked down at them, no sign of dismay on his face. Karkat tried to quiet his burst of hysterical laughter behind him. 

“Yes. Yes it is.” He replied. Sollux started rotating him upside down. Karkat stuffed a fist into his mouth to keep from laughing up his lungs. 

“I can shake you till you puke.” he told Dave conversationally. The troll offered an upside-down lip-quirk of approval. 

“Noted. I apologize.” 

Dave was set gently back on his feet. Karkat had to cling to Sollux's shoulder to keep from falling over with laughter. 

“I, er, heard you had information?” John asked brightly when it became apparent that Sollux and Dave were perfectly content passively staring at each other and Karkat wasn't going to stop giggling and muttering 'priceless' and 'fucking Strider' any time soon. 

Strider broke eye-contact to smile at him with actual teeth. John blinked and stared. 

“You dudes are looking into new drugs on the street, right?” He leaned against Sollux's desk with only slight hesitation. Sollux made no move to stop him, though he did smirk. 

“Thomething like that. Heard about it?” he asked. The tension in the room crackled and John glanced back and forth nervously. 

“Rumors, you know how they are.” He shrugged. “I don't know anything myself.”

Karkat pulled himself upright and pulled together a nasty glare. 

“Then what was the point of showing up, nooksniffer, aside from making everyone fucking miserable?”

“To help you, Kitkat.” Dave replied, layering his tone with patronizing patience. He relished the way the nickname made Karkat steam like a teapot of rage.

“Suck a bulge and die.” Barely restrained rage flattened out his tone. 

“If you want to know about what goes on in the back alleys I'd suggest you talk to Nitram.” Dave offered airily, paying his words no attention. John smiled at him encouragingly with his absurdly blunt teeth. 

Karkat resisted the urge to gouge out his own eyeballs. 

“Stop flirting like dithering pansy-asses and explain, Strider.” Karkat growled. Dave tipped the corner of his lip up into a smirk and John blushed furiously. “I've never heard of any Nitram, why would he know?” 

“Jealous, Karkitty?” Dave asked, then continued talking right over Karkat's eruption of invective. “He's got certain talents. You could say the little birdies talk to him.” 

Karkat paused at last for breath before continuing to curse the world to the last particle of dust.


	7. Chapter Six, In Which Pale Relations are Overshared, a Rack is Admired, and a Legislacerator is Encountered

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just like humans, trolls have myths about the sizes of their bulges. Basically, the bigger the horns the bigger the bulge. Poor Karkat.

“You look like shit.” Sollux said plainly when Karkat lurched into the precinct. 

He really did. His hair was sticking up like he'd stuck his tongue in an electrical outlet and the bags under his eyes could now qualify as carry-on luggage. He glared death at everything that came within range. Sollux helpfully nudged a mug full of coffee so strong it was almost solid against his head. The grateful look he received in reply was almost worshipful. 

“Suck my bulge, douchelord.” Karkat collapsed into his chair and looked around with a vaguely lost expression. 

“Gamzee?” 

“He almost drowned in the fucking toilet.” Karkat rubbed his eyes with one hand and groped blindly for his coffee cup with the other. Sollux nudged it back in reach, blinking in astonishment. 

“I thought you were joking about that, jesuth titth.” 

“Shit, so did I.” The coffee was located and sipped with a near-orgasmic groan. “I don't know how much more damn pity I can take without puking diamonds all down my front.” 

“Groth. Athk him to be your moirail, dipshit. I can't take the thecondhand pity anymore.” Sollux pulled a grotesque grimace when Karkat looked up sharply. “Don't get jealouth with me, you're the one that shareth.” 

“Yeah, well, fuck off. You couldn't handle him anyway.” Karkat laid his head on the soft cushions of his drifts of paperwork. “I don't know how _I'm_ fucking handling him.” 

“Go fuck youthelf, I have Kn.” Sollux snickered. “All the pale I can handle.” 

“Oh god don't tell me, I don't want to know.” Karkat flailed weakly in Sollux's direction. He was so tired he didn't even bother throwing something. “Aren't we going to find this Nitram fucker?” 

“Thupposedly. We're bring Jn along again, though, and he'th late. Another half-hour and we're leaving hith ath.” 

Karkat muttered something about John and Strider's bulge into his coffee, but he didn't have the energy to put any real venom into his words. 

~O~

Sollux and Karkat walked into Strider's bar behind him, sans a John. At pointed, repeated, and increasingly foul insinuations from Karkat it was discovered that Dave hadn't seen John since arriving to cause mayhem at the precinct yesterday. 

Karkat had chalked it up to the moron knocking himself out with his own hammer again and forgot about it. 

“Where ith thith miraculouth fucker.” Sollux looked around, noting the taped-over window. Karkat winced at the word. 

Dave jerked a thumb at a troll in the back booth. Karkat glanced over disinterestedly, then had to stop and stare. 

The troll had a rack and a _half_.

“Shit.” He managed, not quite able to strangle the jealousy out of his voice. Sollux echoed the sentiment with slightly more lisp. Strider almost quirked a corner of his mouth in amusement. 

“That's him.”

With a poisonous backwards glance the two made for the booth. 

“Tavros Nitram?” 

The troll looked up, startled. Sollux held up his badge perfunctorily. 

“Yes, I'm Tavros?” 

His apprehensive expression was so at odds with his impressive rack that Karkat had to spend a moment appreciating the Strider-esque irony. 

“He's like John only _worse_.” He whispered to Sollux, who nodded with an awestruck expression, before turning back to Nitram. “We need to talk to you.” 

“Um, Dave told me. What do you want to know?” He was actually _twisting his claws nervously_. 

“Fucking Strider.” came the automatic reply. “What's your relationship with the asswipe?” 

“Friends?” Nitram squirmed. “That's still a thing that's allowed, right? Oh gosh it's not illegal is it?” 

“No, but don't get near me.” Karkat snorted. “It's probably fucking contagious.” 

“He's not that bad once you get to know him.” Tavros shrugged defensively under Karkat's disbelieveing stare. 

“Let me put it this way. If being-an-asswipe were an army Strider would be a four-star general with decorative medals for being an exceptional douchebag.” Karkat tapped his claws against his leg irritably. 

“I don't know, he's okay to me?” Tavros shrank back. Sollux took platonic pity on them both for being idiots and spoke up. 

“Thtop being a dick to him, Kk. We had thome quethtionth, if we're thtill being polithmen.” He rubbed his eyes resignedly. “I don't know why everything hath to be an imperial fucking dithather area.”

“Nookwhiff.” Karkat directed back at him, then returned to addressing Tavros. “We've been informed that if something needs to be found then you're the one to go to.” 

“Yes, if you have something that smells like it?” Tavros looked suspicious. Karkat and Sollux exchanged glances. 

“You should come with us to the precinct.” 

Tavros's expression of suspicion became one of apprehension. 

~O~

Their entrance to the building was heralded very loudly. 

Sollux and Karkat made it all the way to their desks, Tavros trailing helplessly behind, arguing about what to do the whole way. 

“Seriously, Sollux, I need a fucking rest! And a coffee would not be at all bad, either, I'm fucking tired.” 

“But I think Kanaya could help uth with finding thomething that thmellth like-,” 

The ominous sound of a cane tapping against the ground made Karkat and Sollux both freeze. 

With a whirl of scarlet and teal skirts Terezi burst in, grabbing plush rumps left and right. Tavros squeaked, Sollux flushed bright mustard, and Karkat swore in shock. 

Terezi cackled. The sound would have done justice to several witches. 

“Jesus fucking a Cavalreaper, Terezi! There aren't enough words in all the languages ever fucking invented to convey how inappropriate-.” 

Terezi blew a casual raspberry, interrupting him. 

“Calm down or I'll prescribe an appointment with the Psychologistician!” she threatened. Karkat froze again, then carefully turned slightly to Sollux. 

“Would she?” Karkat asked in a frantic undertone. 

“It'th TZ, what do you THINK?” Sollux replied, backing away. 

“I can hear you!” Terezi cackled. Tavros relaxed a little behind her, apparently thinking he was safe. Karkat didn't bother to correct him. He would find out soon enough. “Don't think I don't know you _both_ haven't seen Rose in _ages_!” 

They cracked simultaneously. 

“Fuck this, I'm too young to die!” Karkat screeched, fighting Sollux to get out the door first. When they had cleared out and were rampaging down the hall raucously in the distance, Terezi turned to Tavros. 

She really did have a disturbingly cheerful, toothy grin. He swallowed nervously. 

Terezi's grin widened. “I have yet to be informed why you're here!”

“I'm, um, supposed to find something for you?” He offered. Terezi cackled her evil laugh. 

“Excellent! If you would be so kind, citizen, as to fetch them back?” Tavros nodded and backed away. “We have arrests to make, I suspect!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The function of a Psychologistician is to cause so much fear in their patients that they no longer fear anything else. Purple-bloods in general are amazingly good at it, and Rose is simply the best there is. Patients rarely need more than one appointment. 
> 
> John has had twenty-seven to date.


	8. Chapter Seven, In Which a Body Smells, a Legislacerator is Feared, and an Angry Detective Hangs From the Rafters

Kanaya's expression was apologetic upon informing them that the only thing that would smell like the drug was the corpse nigh-pickled in it. When they had walked into the chilled morgue and he'd learned that not even refrigeration could stop troll bodies from reeking, Karkat decided she hadn't been apologetic enough. 

Kanaya subtly pushing a trashcan into view and turning up the air conditioning was a step towards forgiveness, though. 

Tavros had proved less than willing to go near a corpse that was going more than a little ripe, but once assured by Terezi that he legally had no choice he grudgingly summoned a pack of meow-beasts to sniff around. They were let back out with Tavros figuratively behind the wheel, sniffing for the unfamiliar smell of the drug. 

It was a lot more tolerable that Tavros had to stay in proximity to the smell of the corpse before Karkat learned he'd have to stay with him.

~O~

It turned out that Tavros in close communion with his beloved beasts bore remarkable similarity to Tavros in a comma, aside from the sporadic twitching. Half an hour into watching him, Karkat had invented the game of 'Kick Sollux Whenever the Dorkass Twitched'. An hour into it, and banished to the far side of the morgue from Sollux, he demanded coffee. An hour and five minutes in he learned that corpse-reek and coffee mixed together could only be described as the unholiest of unions and the morgue acquired a new set of coffee stains. 

Kanaya put on a long-suffering expression and told him that he had been warned about that. 

Tavros returned to himself just as Karkat started flicking balled-up bits of paper at Sollux, sitting bolt upright and catching one right in the ear. He fell over with obedient promptness. 

“What did you find?” Kanaya asked, hauling him gently to his feet. He shook his head a few times to clear it and looked around through unfocused eyes. 

“It's a warehouse, on the river? And it smelled like sea-dwellers.” Tavros frowned and clutched his stomach furtively. “Can I, um, stop sniffing around now? It's just, um.” 

He dove for the trashcan and went about the business of vomiting with great alacrity. 

Pulling his head up a minute or so later, he found three sets of varicolored eyes fixed expectantly on him. He flushed brown. 

“Can I stop sniffing corpses now?” he asked plaintively. 

“Yeah, sure, pansy-ass.” Karkat growled. The speed he exited the room with, however, was much faster than someone completely at ease.

~O~

“Let's take a minute and consider the fucking evidence, shall we? A suspicious odour of sea-dweller, a new drug shipped _right along the river_ , and all under our noses! It's fucking Ampora, don't even try to say otherwise!”

“Don't be an ath, Kk, Eridan'th not a _complete_ idiot. He would have blown hith whole operation by bring uth the coprthe, if you'll bother uthing your pan!” 

“...Fuck your logic, I don't even care. Are there any other smuggling operations we know of?”

“Only the typical black-market trade, and that's been quiet recently anyway. Dears, I believe this is a matter you should bring to Ampora's attention.” 

“Fuck that noithe, why?” 

“I trust you haven't forgotten what happened to the last group to impinge on the business of illicit importation in our harbors.” 

There was a moment of silence. 

“...Oh. Did we ever find those bodieth?”

“Nope.”

~O~

The warehouse that Tavros had indicated was in the same block as the one that the body had been found in, a fact that surprised exactly no one. The closer to the river a neighborhood was the higher the odds of stumbling over something long-dead and rank. It was also no surprise that the eye-rapingly bright uniform of a legislacerator cleared the streets quickly.

Terezi knocked on the door with extreme efficiency. The door was opened. The troll behind the door, a large and large-horned blue-blood male, caught sight of his visitors. 

He took off in the opposite direction as if he had rockets tied to his feet and somewhere to be in a hurry. 

Running was suicidal, but probably less painful in the long run. Alternian law held that everyone was guilty of something, bar none. It was just a matter of enough interrogation and finding the law that strung up the noose. A legislacerator's work was never done, but it was done with sadistic glee. 

“Stop, in the name of justice!” she shouted after the fleeing figure. He didn't stop. 

“Is he heading out the back?” She asked, taking an exploratory sniff. There were too many foreign smells for her to decode the direction he was running, for now. 

“Right out the back door. Kk'th going to have a rage-gathm.” Sollux replied, slouching in lazily past her.

~O~

Blind panic did not lend itself well to the plotting of a creative escape, or even to the navigation of a dark warehouse. The blue-blood pointed himself roughly in the direction of the back exit and hoped really hard that he wouldn't run into anything.

He was stopped by 110 pounds of loud, angry troll, dropped directly on his head. 

“FUCK, fuck, my fucking arms, so many cramps, shit!” 

The weight on him rolled away. He was seeing double, but he was almost sure that the shortest male troll he had ever met was sitting next to him and speculating at creative length on his genetic origin. 

“-with a SEA-GOAT, for fuck's sake!”

A set of gray-skinned hands reached into his vision and resolved themselves into a single finger shaking reprovingly in front of his nose. He groaned, nausea deciding to make it's grand stage debut in his gut. 

Unsympathetically Terezi dragged him up, sniffing out his face. There was a tinge of indigo blueberry on the side of his head where he had hit the ground. 

“You are advised to remain silent! Anything you say can and will be used as evidence for you guilt. Do you understand?” 

The troll gurgled out something approximating an affirmative. Terezi let his head drop with a wince-worthy crack. 

“I think you hit him a little hard, Karkat!” She cackled. He shrugged defensively. 

“He was fucking asking for it, with ceilings that high. _Anyone_ could hang from the rafters and catch him unawares.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Karkat is the shortest male troll. Nepeta is the shortest troll overall. Gamzee is the tallest troll, followed by Eridan. Karkat does not appreciate his height.


	9. Chapter Eight, In Which an Interrogation Occurs and a Drubbing is Narrowly Avoided

On the grand list of things the blue-blood had ever wanted to do in his life, being tied to a chair was actually pretty close to the top. However, the circumstances of his desire and the circumstances of reality did not quite match up. There was a good deal more dull ache in his back and neck than any enjoyable blackplay would warrant. 

He shook his head muzzily, the thought tragically not occurring to him that alerting his surroundings to his consciousness wasn't a terribly good idea. 

The sound of saliva and general unpleasant wetness registered before the feeling of tongue moving on his cheek. The sensations formed a queue, reached realization one at a time, and allowed him a polite moment in which to fully awake. 

He whipped around in his chair, trying compulsively to wipe his cheek. He flushed bright blue when all the action succeeded in doing was jerk his shoulder around. 

“That simply isn't decent!” he cried with the desperately angry tone of one who had only his sense of the word to cling to. 

He was stopped by the sight of Terezi Pyrope, of whom odes of indecency could be written. It had been posited by one Karkat Vantas and reached general consensus that decency was a concept that she had never, and likely would never, find remotely interesting. Under the word indecent in the dictionary there was an artistic rendering of her face. 

She had shark teeth, he noted with the dawning, pants-wetting terror of the well and truly cornered. She had shark teeth and a smile that indicated that she had been born with a similarly shark-like sense for blood in the water. 

“Hello, blueberry!” she chirped. He couldn't restrain a whimper. 

“Is there anything you'd like to confess?” she asked. Her tone was only marginally brighter than her flashing teeth. 

The only possible answer when a legislacerator asked such a question was silence. 

In the intent quiet that followed the blue-blood had the time to examine the room. Grey walls, a floor that was artfully washed so that the bloodstains were menacingly faint, and a yellow-blood troll with red and blue psionics sparking in the air around him. 

He looked dismally down at his bound arms. The air around his wrists crackled with purple. He looked dismally up at Terezi's bladed grin. He could have sworn the air around it went 'ting!'.

“I,” she told him in a spectacular failure of a reassurance, “am getting bored.” 

There was an indication in the tone and the stance of the yellow-blood by the door that boring this girl was something extremely unwise to do. 

Under any circumstances. 

“I, er, um, that is to say!” he managed. The net effect of his words was the raising of the yellow-blood's left eyebrow by precisely a millimeter. Terezi managed, somehow, to stuff more teeth into her grin. 

“You don't know anything, do you, about an illegal new sopor substitute?” she crooned. He froze as she sniffed delicately around his ear. 

“-What?” he managed belatedly. He was sweating rather profusely. 

“So new that it doesn't even have a street name yet, isn't that right?” her blind face twitched in the yellow-bloods direction and the troll nodded. Her face twisted back towards him and how did she manage to get her mouth to make a question mark?

“I, no?” 

“Then you would have NO idea, of course, how it came to be _shipped through your warehouse_?” The poor blue-blood jumped in his seat at her sudden change in tone. He felt the sudden, embarrassing urge to cry. 

“No, madame Legislacerator! I just rent it out, I swear!” 

“I'm sure!” She whirled away from the table in a flash of color and strode around it. Her breath, smelling strangely chalky, washed over his cheek again. He was very aware of the fact that her teeth were extremely close to his neck. “Then you won't mind if we impound your property?” 

“Yes, anything! Whatever you need.” he babbled. 

He was examined with a long, drawn out, bizarrely menacing sniff. 

“I'm sure a fine, upstanding troll like yourself would just _love_ to donate to the police-force keeping his city streets so clean.” she suggested at last. He nodded convulsively. 

His hands were released and he was helped solicitously from the chair. 

“I shall keep a close eye on you, then! You wouldn't want anything untoward to happen!” 

He didn't bother hiding the fact that he was running from the room. A screeching laugh and a few terrifying words followed him on his flight down the corridor. 

“You should hope we find the perpetrators un-forewarned, blueberry!”

~O~

Terezi turned to Sollux as the door slammed shut in the blue-bloods wake. Her triumphant grin was, in reality, no more toothsome than her normal grins. The subtle air of justice was mysterious in origin.

“I hope you're ready for a stake-out!” she crowed. Sollux grimaced. 

“You're a menathe, Tz.” She cackled. “The poor bathtard hath no idea what he agreed to. He'll be finanthing the prethinct for yearth.” 

“Don't complain, appleberry, I'm the one keeping us in coffee mugs despite your fakesprite!” 

Sollux snickered despite himself. 

“He'th a handful, yeah.” 

“Gross!” Terezi pulled a face and smacked her cane against the floor threateningly. “The sentence for grossing out your legislacerator with concupiscent shenanigans is a sound drubbing!” 

The threat made Sollux pause to consider. He was willfully ignorant of Alternian law, but what he was forced to know of it was insane and such a law was not only in the realm of the possible, but was sending out enterprising settlers into the lands of the probable. 

“You're lying.” he tested. Terezi grinned a horrible, horrible grin. 

“Try me.”

~O~

“Hey Kk gueth what.”

“Fuck you.” 

“Get over yourthelf, tho what if I proved you wrong. Anyway, gueth!” 

“You finally pulled your thinkpan out of your wastechute and asked Ampora to be your damnable kismesis, thank god.” 

“...No, Kk, and fuck you too.” 

“Shit, Sollux, I didn't mean it, grow a bulge. What were you going to say?” 

“Apology akthepted, athhole. We have thtakeout duty! On the warehouthe! Out by the themlly river!” 

“...FUCK YOU.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys, where's John?


	10. Interlude, In Which There Is Stakeout Duty and Dramatic Meta-Irony

The smell pervaded everything. 

It wasn't such a very bad smell, if taken in parts. The old-fish aroma of the bloated river, that was normal. The animals skulking around and the fabulous little presents they left behind were easy enough to handle. Even the occasional phantom, subtly horrifying whiff of rotting troll corpse could be dealt with. 

Piling one on top of each other in a horrendous dog-pile - as if getting to their noses first would lead to some sort of prize - and aggravated by the unrelentingly warm vehicle... 

“Fuck my life!” 

Sollux pried open an eye, dull crimson lighting up the side of his face. 

“I'm trying to thleep, douchebag.” The malevolence in his voice could have stripped paint. Karkat sneered, unimpressed. 

“Misery love company, taintchaffing nooknugget that you are.” 

The second eye opened. The malice ratcheted up to something akin to 'death at ten paces'. Karkat's sneer acquired a few more dripping layers of contempt. 

“Kk. Kk, my dearetht darling shitthtain of an abomination, Kk. If you do not shut up and let me thleep my fitht will initiate thtrife with your fucking fathe.” 

Karkat bared his teeth. The air in the vehicle was too hot and too close for him to think straight, and it was making him irrationally angry. 

“As if you ever won a fistfight in you damned life. You're nothing without your precious _pthionicth_.” 

“Oh boo hoo, I'm Kk and I can't handle feelingth!” Sollux mocked in an insultingly shrill falsetto. "I compenthate by being a complete athhole!" 

Karkat felt the plastic leather substitute of his seat give way under his claws and he didn't even care. 

“Well at least I'm not a lisping bi-chromatic two-obsessed mutant freak!” he snarled. 

The way Sollux's expression slammed shut was unmistakable. 

His heart took up residence at his feet. His stomach acid made an intrepid bid for freedom via his throat. 

“Yeah, Kk, sorry you have to athothiate with uth freakth.” Sollux turned to look out the windshield. 

Fuck. 

“I. Sollux. I'm... I'm fucking... Fuck. Sorry.” Karkat tried to pretend that the words didn't burn his mouth on the way out. Sollux didn't look terribly convinced. 

“It'th nothing, Karkat, drop it.” 

The usage of his full name set Karkat off like a short firework filled with bitterness and rage. He started muttering to himself, not bothering to control his volume as it began to rise. 

“-Better man the guns, it's the battleship USS Karkat-the-Fuckup! But wait, we don't even need to fire because fucking worthless that I am I decided to finally prove that I don't actually have a single shred of dignity and sink myself in the process!” He fell back, breathing hard and folding his arms as tightly to his chest as he could. Fuck, he hated Past-Karkat already. 

“Oh shut up, Kk, no one wantth to attend your pity party.” Karkat startled and looked up. “I forgive you, fuckath.” Sollux's glare wasn't very reassuring, but Karkat decided to take what he could get. 

“Go die in a fire.” Karkat furtively rubbed his horns. Stress and exhaustion weighed at the back of his mind. “..We're still friends?” 

Sollux threw an incredulous glance his way. 

“Fuck, yeth Kk. Can I pleathe go to thleep now?” 

“...Fine.”


	11. Chapter Nine, In Which There is Yet More Stakeout Duty, a Fight Ensues, Another Fight Ensues, and Things SM3LL L1K3 JUST1C3

“No. Hell no! Fuck no! Hell fucking no!” 

“Come _on_ Kk, I jutht want to lithten to thome muthic.”

“Your music is shitty and you should feel shitty for trying to make me listen to it!” 

“Fuck you, you lithten to Taylor Thwift in your ablution trap and cry and don't even try to deny it.” 

“Oh excuse me, Mr. Thinks-the-Space-Jam-soundtrack-is-a-musical-masterpiece!” 

“It'th an unrecognized gem and thomeday you'll all realize it, tho thuck my bulge.” Sollux sat back, expression affronted. Karkat rubbed his horns in the vain hope of relieving his headache. He wished his damnedest for some fresh air, or barring that a nearby crime to perpetrate extremely violent justice upon. 

“I hate stakeout duty.” He gave up on the headache and groped for his thermos of old, cold coffee. It tasted like battery acid and bliss. 

“Join the club, dipshit.” Sollux reached imploringly for the thermos. Karkat grudgingly handed it over. 

“This is me being patient with this bullshit. Note my fucking fantastic levels of patience, bulge-biter, and be amazed.” Sollux shrugged and handed back the coffee. Karkat frowned in dismay at the significantly lighter thermos. 

~O~

Karkat was playing idly with the switch that raised and lowered the window, slowly and vindictively driving Sollux insane, when he spotted it. 

He had nearly scrabbled out of the window with excitement before Sollux noticed enough to pull him back. 

“Kk, what are you doing _now_?” 

“Fucking shut up, Sollux, there's something moving in there.” Karkat hissed, craning intently. 

Sollux froze momentarily, then piled right over Karkat to look out the window. After a long moment of observation of the lights moving behind the shaded windows of the warehouse he sat back slowly. He then made a grab for the radio handset. 

Karkat snatched it a split-second before he did and it was sailing out the window and into the night before Sollux could reach out with his psionics. There was a faint echo of a crunch, and then silence. 

Karkat met his hateful look with an evil smile. 

“Kk.” His voice was dead. 

“You were going to call for backup, dumbass.” 

“Yeth. You know, per protocol.” 

“Ha, like we need those useless bulge-polishers anyway! Fuckers spend so much time up each others nooks it's surprising they have time for anything else.” 

“...I conthede the latht part, but. Kk. There'th almotht twenty of them. Thith ith _thuithidal_.”

“I'm going in there with or without you.” 

There was a staring contest. 

“Kk you are going to get uth _killed_.” Sollux told him in a resigned undertone. Karkat rolled his shoulders and grinned at him fiercely. Adrenaline was running through his veins like herds of fluff-beasts. 

“Give me some credit, fucker. You know there's nothing I do better.” 

The moonlight and Sollux's crackling eyes combined to weirdly emphasize the yellow tinge in his cheeks. 

~O~

The possibility of this going smoothly, thought Sollux, had been zero from the start. Smoothness did not mix well with Karkat. Karkat was by nature the chunky creamed-nut-product to the worlds smooth churned-dairy-product. 

The initial ease of entrance should have warned him of the impending doom, but ever the eternal optimist he had followed Karkat out of the car and to the building, bitching quietly every step of the way. 

Karkat had made some very insistent hand gestures, indicating that he was going in _first_ and that Sollux would be doing absolutely _no_ cheating. Sollux had agreed with a middle finger and bad grace. 

And so Karkat had managed to sneak in and had even gotten as far as knocking out the first troll before he was noticed. Sollux was following him in, restraining himself bitterly from using his psionics, when everything very suddenly went to shit. 

Karkat was sent tumbling ass over horns into the far wall and the red and blue sparks that had sent him there started pulling his limbs into interesting and probably untenable positions. 

One of them was a _psionic_. 

Fuck. 

He decided it wasn't cheating if the other side did it first and slammed all of his power into knocking the other psionic through a wall. The troll skidded a few feet before catching himself and throwing a surge of momentum back. Sollux sank his teeth into his bottom lip and stood his ground. 

He could hold them back. He could hold them _all_ back. 

He felt the burn start in his horns, first the small set and then the large, the phantom fire of psionics pushed too far, as he looped his power over the whole room. He grabbed everything and put everything he could spare into trying to throw it at the other psionic. 

He felt the other troll do the same. 

A lamp across the room was the first casualty. The glass bulb exploded like a grub with too much sugar and excitement. He growled and pushed harder, but his efforts were split between the psionic and keeping the bindings on the gang of trolls. There must have been twenty. 

The burn was spreading down into his stupid mutant brain, settling behind his eyes and he was crying. Yellow fluid dripped from his chin and he strained to keep his vision clear. 

The world was swaying a little bit, and his balance was struggling to manage that bullshit. Stupid world, he was in the middle of something here. 

Was his skin on fire? It felt like it. He was burning up all over and he thought that he might be screaming. With a distant sort of pride he noted that the trolls were still in place. God, he was the swaggest. It was him. 

His thoughts lurched sideways for a second and his vision went suspiciously tunnel-y. 

Well, there wasn't much in the way of options anymore. If Sollux could have mustered the concentration he would have laughed. Karkat wasn't going to like this, not at all. 

~O~

Moving in this room was slower than moving through a vat of Sollux's honey, though Karkat considered himself lucky. The other trolls were being jerked in place in tiny little earthquakes of red and blue sparks. Everything in the room seemed to be haloed with them. 

Karkat promised to himself to bitch to Sollux about how the light hurt his eyes later and settled in for the long trek across the room to get his claws in the psionic going toe-to-toe with Sollux. The idiot. Nobody beat Sollux at this game. He was simply the best there was. 

When he got there, he was going to do some truly evil things. He had some gleefully awful ideas. 

There was some sort of shift in the air, in the play of sparks, and it was suddenly even more difficult to move than before. 

“Kk. Kk. Cover your earth, Karkat.” Sollux grated. At his name Karkat forced his head upright, expression comical with rage and realization. 

“Fuck, what?” 

“Cover your _earth_ , fuckath!”

“Fuck Sollux no you don't-!”

The burst of pressure against his ears was... painful. 

He went into the dark still trying to decide which of them was the bigger nookwhiffing idiot, Sollux for being such a goddamn martyr or himself for not listening to the instructions to plug his fucking ears. 

~O~

Karkat woke with a headache like his own personal cranial supernova and rage approaching the incandescent. 

Everything made of glass or ceramic in the room had been shattered, lights included. Karkat wasn't placing bets on the state of the rest of the buildings on the block, either. The dark, lumpy masses of trolls littered the floor around him when he dragged himself to a sitting position. For a moment he counted forty of them, before he realized the he was seeing well over double. 

“Fucking concussions, fuck!” he gritted out, hauling himself to his knees through sheer force of will. It felt like he had gone twelve rounds with Egbert's hammer. His _everything_ hurt. 

He blinked once, and then again to clear his vision. Squinting, he tried got make out the end of the room. 

The far wall was painted in swathes of yellow, too drippy and thick to be anything but blood. It was too dim to focus on the exact shade. 

He noted that his lungs felt too tight. 

Karkat shuffled over, noting that the gory spray had painted itself from the wall across the floor. It had also, Karkat found by the elementary method of following the yellow lines, originated from one of the crumpled balls of troll. 

When he reached him the troll seemed... ominously still. Karkat reached over reluctantly to tip his head around and winced. Sunny yellow blood still trickled slowly from the corners of his mouth, from his ruined eyes, from his nose. 

He was pretty convincingly dead. 

He was also pretty convincingly not Sollux. 

Karkat let out a breath and continued his voyage across the floor, looking for Sollux. 

Thankfully, finding him was not prefaced by following a gout of drying blood. It was instead prefaced by Karkat's misplaced hand and subsequent tumble to land face-first into Sollux's stomach. 

When he had hauled himself upright he had the time to take a good look at his face. Gross, clotted mustard gummed up his eyelids and chin. Karkat scratched at it gingerly. It was too thick to be tears, shit. 

Karkat managed to fall over once again in the act of attempting to shake Sollux. 

“Sollux, Sollux you asshole you can't be dead!” He struggled upright and shook the troll sharply. “I forbid you to fucking die, wake up!” 

There was a groan with riffs on the theme of lisp. Karkat tilted an ear over his mouth. 

“Sollux?” he tentatively jabbed Sollux in the side. The twitch and groan were extremely reassuring. More so was the beckoning wave a minute later. 

Karkat cautiously leaned closer. 

“Tell me you pity me.” Sollux gurgled. Karkat rocked back, relief and rage fighting it out in his veins. 

“You festering sack of rectal discharge.” He breathed, compromising. Sollux spat out a tooth and grinned foggily. His teeth were stained mustard. 

“Wriggler.” 

“Bitch. This doesn't mean I pity you.” Karkat's cheeks were giving limes a run for their money. Sollux's were so pasty-gray it looked like someone had vacuumed out his veins. He still hadn't opened his eyes. 

“You are thuch a grub, Kk. ...I think I need to path out now.” 

“You miserable pansy-ass, fine. I'll take care of the damn mess, as fucking always.” 

“Tho good of you, Kk.” 

True to his word Sollux closed his eyes and passed the fuck out. Karkat took a minute to stand up and rest with his hands on his knees. 

A groan nearby made him snap upright, which was an unfortunate choice of movement that nearly put him very suddenly back on his ass. 

The trolls nearby were stirring awake. 

Karkat felt a vicious grin hike up the corners of his mouth as he ejected his sickles from his specibus and into his hands. He was concussed, Sollux was down, and he was outnumbered ten to one. 

It was time to fuck shit up. 

~O~

Terezi entered the room an hour later to find eighteen trolls in various inventive styles of restrained or dead, an _extremely_ dead psionic, a barely conscious Sollux, and a battered and maniacally-grinning Karkat. 

“Smells like justice!”


	12. Epilogue, In Which Medicine is Aggressively Applied and Legislacerators Do Have Hearts

Kanaya entered the room after Terezi with the sort of doom and fury that impressed even Karkat. She made straight for Sollux, barking at the trolls trailing haphazardly after her to 'Check on the criminals _if you please_ '. 

Sollux flinched and attempted to crawl away, muttering desperately that it wasn't worth having his injuries seen to if Kanaya was that angry. 

A deliberate foot planted on his sleeve pulled him up short. Karkat grinned at him with teeth that had enough non-lime blood in them to be incredibly disturbing. Sollux had just enough time for a betrayed look before Kanaya hit them like a hurricane. 

A pap to the back of the head only marginally softer than a right hook sent Sollux to the ground with a squawk. Kanaya loomed over them. 

“I shall see to you later.” With a jab of the finger in the direction of Terezi and the trolls loading up the bodies Karkat was dismissed. He left with alacrity. 

Sollux cringed. 

~O~

Now that there were no more trolls to forcibly persuade to walk the straight and narrow, and no Sollux to look after, Karkat found his body was having trouble soaking up all the adrenaline and caffeine. His head felt suspiciously light and bubbly. Surreptitiously he checked he was still walking on the ground. 

He was swaying a little bit, and when he tried to walk straight he ended up pointed in directions he certainly didn't intend to go. 

He didn't giggle. He _didn't_. 

He finally fetched up against Terezi in his maudlin voyage across the warehouse. She gave him a grin with the customary amount of teeth. The customary amount of teeth was always too many teeth, in Karkat's opinion. 

He giggled. 

Terezi patted his shoulder gently. Karkat winced and rubbed his bruises gingerly. 

“Hi.” He told her, ignoring the way the world was swaying in the corners of his eyes. 

“I don't think I've ever seen so many trolls restrained with so few handcuffs!” Terezi told him, thumping her cane on the ground in an impressed manner. 

“I will not apologize for art.” Karkat replied giddily, weaving slightly in place. Kanaya eyed him uneasily between admonishments to Sollux for tugging at his bandages. 

“Now that was artistic indeed!” Terezi told him solemnly. “I haven't seen the one with the four trolls with one set of cuffs and the packing crate before!” 

“The trick was fitting the fat one under it, that was a bitch and a half.” Karkat confided, snatching a cup of coffee from a trainee without looking. The poor troll didn't even bother protesting. “I'm pretty proud of the arrangement in the closet, personally.” 

“It certainly brought tears to my eyes! How did you manage to get all six in?” Karkat actually giggled, swaying alarmingly. 

“Really fucking carefully.” Kanaya got to her feet and headed their way purposefully. Karkat didn't notice until it was too late. 

~O~

Sollux watched Kanaya accost Karkat with bandages and antibiotics with a vague grin. One of his bottom left molars felt loose and he wanted to pull it out. 

He spat it out just in time for Terezi to nimbly avoid. 

“You taste like mustard.” Terezi whispered to him conspiratorially. “It's gross.” 

“Are you going to arrest me for it?” Sollux whispered back, keeping half an eye on Karkat being insufferable to Kanaya about his concussion. Terezi sighed, and Sollux looked back at her in shock. 

“I'm not so cruel!” she stood up. “Don't do that again, appleberry is too yummy.” 

Sollux grinned up at her, a slightly punchdrunk brain giving him courage. 

“I'll make sure, Tz. Jutht for the appleberry, of courthe.” The salute he gave was lopsided and comical. 

“I'm afraid I can't lie!” she told him solemnly. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They completely forgot about the murderer at large. An example of fine Alternian justice.


End file.
